CANBERRA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- A new facility has given Australia's peak scientific body the power to test ancient groundwater with great accuracy.
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said on Thursday that the Noble Gas Facility, built at CSIRO's Waite campus in Adelaide, is the first in the Southern Hemisphere.
Using the five noble gases, xenon, krypton, argon, helium and neon, researchers at the facility can find and analyze "fossil" groundwater that has been moving beneath the Australian continent for millions of years.
"It gives us a completely new tool to investigate groundwater in Australia, providing insight on Australia's groundwater resources from recent times to as far back as the last ice age," Axel Suckow, the CSIRO physicist who led the construction of the facility, said in a media release on Thursday.
"We need a better understanding of our groundwater systems and how they are replenished to ensure that, as we continue to use this valuable resource and with a changing climate, we also protect it from overuse or contamination.
"The noble gas helium, for instance, increases due to radioactive decay of uranium naturally present in the rocks through which groundwater flows.
"That means the higher the helium content in the groundwater the older the groundwater is.
"If you give me a water sample that is 10,000 years old, then from the concentration of argon, krypton and xenon, I can tell you the ground surface temperature 10,000 years ago which is very valuable information for paleoclimate studies inland."
The facility is one of only a handful of comparable facilities worldwide, with each being built to suit local groundwater conditions.
